Screenworks Asia has picked up international rights to the second season of award-winning Taiwanese drama series The World Between Us and will commence sales at MIPCOM.
The series, which wrapped earlier this year and is currently in post-production, is produced by Screenworks Asia parent company Catchplay, Taiwanese broadcaster PTS and Koko Entertainment, with support from Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA). Former TAICCA executive Chia-hua Yeh has recently joined Screenworks Asia as sales executive and will be attending MIPCOM to introduce the series to international buyers.
Lin Chun-yang, director of the first season, has returned to direct after also working on acclaimed series such as Gold Leaf and Netflix’s Wave Makers. The cast is headed by Vic Chou (Meteor Garden), Hsueh Shih-ling (Taiwan Crime Stories) and Hsieh Hsin-ying (The Assassin).
Broadcast in 2019, The World Between Us was one of the first Taiwanese drama series to tackle local social issues, including mental health, social security and the impact of local media, sparking a trend in Taiwan for more socially conscious drama.
The second season begins with an arson at a supermarket, unravelling a complex web of connections among six families whose lives have been intertwined for over two decades. As they grapple with revenge, betrayal, suffering and redemption, the profound impact of the tragedy emerges.
“It took me four years to finally complete the script with the many characters to manage. I gave up on the episodic synopsis and two episodes of script at one point to start from scratch. It is definitely not common, and it is a relatively tough task to create such a vast story within a 10-episode format,” said Lu Shih-yuan, screenwriter of The World Between Us II.
Lin Chun-yang said: “The series gathers the various challenges from my previous works, including depicting complicated human nature, recreating different time periods, and executing crowd special effects. We attempt to tell the story in a rarely seen structure, which I believe will provide a brand-new viewing experience for the audience.”
Screenworks Asia’s MIPCOM line-up also includes Islanders, an adaptation of Hu Ching-fang’s novel Islands, starring award-winning actors Christopher Lee and Wu Kang-jen.